Illamasqua Eye Brow Brush

Click the pics for a closer look

If you've been reading this blog for more than five minutes you will know that I constantly bemoan the state of my eyebrows - they're trashed after many years of plucking them too thinly in the 90s. They were never that hairy to begin with either. I am always trying to regrow them and get them properly shaped, but each time I attempt it hijinks ensue and it falls in a heap. The most galling thing is that I am obsessed with perfect eyebrows; they are the first thing I notice about people, and I have been known to take a particular liking or disliking to celebrities based purely on their eyebrows.



Therefore, I'm always searching for that Holy Grail product that will make my eyebrows look - if not perfect - decent. I have dozens of pencils, powders, waxes, and so on. I also bought a MAC #266 brush specifically for my eyebrows. I was annoyed to find this was too soft to give the really precise line I wanted.

A while back I was watching one of camiloveskiwi's videos and she gave the Illamasqua Eye Brow Brush a bit of a rave, saying it was very precise and had firm bristles and a fine width (or words to that effect).

I have to admit that I've been avoiding Illamasqua - it's pretty enough but it doesn't really excite me, and it looks like it would be horrifically expensive here in Australia. I can't really tell you whether it is, because there's no store in Adelaide (coming soon, I hear) and they don't have an Australian website. However, this brush sounded like it was exactly what I have been wanting, so I bit the bullet and ordered one from the UK website. It was £18.50, about $30AUD, so it's expensive but not quite as expensive as MAC. For comparison, the MAC #266 is $39 here. Although I also had to pay for shipping, which I think was £8.00 ($12AUD), so I didn't really come out ahead on that. (I threw in an eyeshadow just to make the shipping a bit more worthwhile.)

The Illamasqua brush is a fair bit bigger than a #266, which is pretty teeny. The handle is a bit longer as well, which is probably my only complaint about it. I do my eyebrows with a hand held mirror, and the handle is so long it's hard to get close enough to the mirror to see what I'm doing properly. I don't know why cosmetic companies insist on these really long handles - Sigma does it too.

Aside from that little moan, I FREAKING LOVE THIS BRUSH. It's firm enough to get a nice, precise line, and it applies powder like a dream. When I first ordered it I was a bit peeved at the price I had to pay to get my mitts on it, but now that I've used it, I don't regret coughing up at all. In fact, I want to try more Illamasqua brushes.

This is just some dried up old gel liner, but you can see the difference in the lines anyway - the left swatch was done with a MAC #266, the right with the Illamasqua Eye Brow Brush. It's a much finer, sharper line.

I can't speak highly enough of this brush, it's just about my favourite thing that I own at the moment.

Agent Dale Cooper gives the Illamasqua Eye Brow Brush the thumbs up.